Taken 2 Movie Review

Okay, I'm gonna dodge all the jokes involving a "Very particular set of skills" or the sheer stupidity of trying to kill Liam Neeson and say that when I got the movies yesterday, my choices were this and Frankenweenie, and my undying hatred of Tim Burton (yep, I just said that) repelled me from Frankenweenie. Maybe I should be a little less hard on Tim Burton...

Hey guys, guess what? This is my 200th post. In retrospect I wish I'd planned this out better.You'll get something good for #300, don't worry. Anyway, I saw Taken 2 yesterday, and the plot is as follows: the family of the people Liam Neeson killed in the first movie are out for revenge, so they take try to take Liam Neeson and his entire family while they're in Istanbul. Seriously? This guy is a Greek god and Narnian god, he's fought wolves to the death with his bare hands, he's trained Batman AND Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's just a flat out badass, and you're really gonna attempt to hurt him. (Okay, I lied, but you know I had to make that joke.) This begins rehash.

I know that's the big problem most people had with the movie, that it's a rehash of the first one, but, and this is to my everlasting shame, I haven't the first Taken. Bring on the troll comments. That being said, I know that it's a rehash, I just can't be as PO'd about that as someone who's seen the first one would be. Let's move on.

So, the biggest overall problem I had with this movie was that they tried to make Maggie Grace's character (I'm huge LOST fan, so seeing her as a brunette is weird...) relevant and competent. Normally, I'd be all for that kind of thing; I've watched Buffy and BSG, I love BAMF girls. There are two problems with that idea though: the idea of her character suddenly being competent after all the screaming and crying she did in the first one (I haven't seen it, but we all know about that part) just isn't believable, and Maggie Grace is a lousy actress (even when she was on LOST, I just felt like "Sayid, man you could have any girl on that island except Claire, and you're going for the one who thought you were a terrorist?"). She was always over the top and Tobey Maguire-crying and just saying her lines badly. It was annoying. And they tried to make her suddenly competent, and I just didn't buy it.

The main villain in this the father of the first one's main villain, and he's not a great villain. Is he intimidating? Kind of. But the thing is, he never gets his hands dirty. He always has someone do it for him. Seriously, this is the guy who killed your son; wouldn't you wanna personally put a bullet in him?

After that there's little things, like location fails, Maggie Grace throwing grenades into the city so Liam Neeson can hear where she is, the fact that no shot lasts more then 10 seconds, especially in the action scenes, where every punch has about ten cuts, twenty angles, and it's in close-quarters shaky-cam, you know, bad directing. (A fun drinking game would be you watch Taken 2, and every time there's a cut you take a shot; after about 15 minutes you'd passed out).

But at least there's plenty of Liam Neeson killing people, right, because that's probably what you saw the movie for? Wrong. There's a confusing lack of Liam Neeson kicking ass. If you want to see that, watch the first Taken (that's what I'm gonna do), watch Batman Begins, heck, watch Phantom Menace, because there's more Liam Neeson badassery in that then in this.

The movie did have a few saving graces, though. Liam Neeson just being there somehow adds credibility, because he was great in it, like he always is. Famke Jansen was good as his wife, too, and the score was really good. Seriously, the score was epic. I was gonna say the music was epic, but they borrowed a lot of their non-score songs from Drive, and at the begininng of the movie, this song starts playing, and when I heard the first note, I was like "wait, is that that the Bourne (I will review those eventually) music?" It wasn't, but you get the idea.

All that being said, I was mildly entertained for most of the movie. I mean, at no point, was like "make it stop, make it stop, for the love of God make it stop", i.e.m it's not The Losers bad. It's the type of action movie where you're entertained when you're watching it, but you don't actually like it that much, if that makes sense. You know, like Terminator 3.

In the end, Taken 2 doesn't suck, but avoid paying to see it like the plague.

So, what's you're favorite Liam Neeson movie? Comment below, let me know!